back to article Facebook gives itself mission to 'bring the world closer' by getting people off Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg's given Facebook a new mission statement: “To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together", in the process rediscovering The Social Network™'s original purpose and exposing web utopianism as hopelessly optimistic. The new old direction was given to the world of Facebook on Zuck' …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Zuk's done great job of making Facebook appear benign. Bet he'd prefer this wasn't in public domain:

    #1:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

    #2:

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/02/facebook-executive-advertising-data-comment

    #3:

    http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-mood-experiment/index.html

  2. werdsmith Silver badge

    Is Facebook still a thing?

    Somebody let me know when it's gone please.

  3. Sil

    Zuck says <> Zuck does

    Zuck Says: Gift humanity with the power of building communities

    Zuck does: embed as many fake news and as many adverts as possible

    Zuck Says: Facebook is the best place for devs with a vision

    Zuck Does: our vision is to steal any Snap feauture within 24 hours on all our properties: Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, ...

    Zuck Says: We'll cure all illnesses within 100 years

    Zuck Does: dream on

  4. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    It's all on Facebook

    Not a user myself, but my Mother in Law is (a very sweet lady, 78 years old) because all her friends are on it and she recently complained to me that her friends even post of Facebook that they are going to the toilet... WTF?

    And we're worried about the Russians spying on us?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Get off Facebook?

    Never been on it and never felt the need to expose myself (not like that!)

    But the US DHS won't like this. They assume that everyone is on Social Media and want to see all your SM history when going there.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Get off Facebook?

      want to see all your SM history

      I know some deviant characters in the London scene with a seriously bent sense of humour who would take that as an invitation for offering something completely different, and I would really, REALLY want to be there when that happens :).

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    America

    Spreading freedom and tolerance. Using violence.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A simpler version is:

    Facebook makes money from adverts.

    Users who give minimal/false details (incorrect date or birth, alias names etc) are not profitable so need to be ejected.

    Ejecting users reduces potential revenue.

    Facebook needs to promote itself to bring in more users.

    Rince: Repeat.

    They want all your (real) data* so they can make more money. That's it. Everything else is there to lure in more suckers.

    *There are a surprising number of users who prefer giving false dates of birth, or use a common name or alias due to fear of identity theft or online stalkers. This is alongside those with professional names, such as those in acting and authors. FB don't like them as their data isn't as valuable.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Users who give minimal/false details (incorrect date or birth, alias names etc) are not profitable so need to be ejected.

      That's why offering customer communication exclusively via social media should be legally banned - it forces people into this sh*t.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Data integrity

      Facebook is actually surprisingly inept at making accurate use of the data it gets from its users.

      I have included my city of residence in my profile, as it helps people I know find me on Facebook, while at the same time not geolocating me too precisely (as a Reg reader, it surely goes without saying that I have not granted the Facebook app access to location services nor my address book). Yet I am constantly shown sponsored "targeted" ads for businesses and organisations in a city 300 km away from where I live, and despite occasionally "checking in" to events or places in my city, nothing seems to persuade Facebook that I don't actually live in this other city.

      Given that many of these ads targeting people in the other city are from small/medium local businesses in or near that city, I am sure they would be extremely annoyed to discover that their advertising expenditure is being wasted by Facebook showing their ads to people who are nowhere near their catchment area.

  8. Weiss_von_Nichts

    giving more leaders the power to build communities

    Sure, we don't have enough morons telling us what to do - and certainly we need them to do so *on Facebook*.

    If there was an option to get them all into FB (and nowhere else) plus an option to throw away the key, it'd be something else...

  9. Mike 16

    You want to be closer to those around you?

    Try commuting on public transport.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: You want to be closer to those around you?

      You say that as if it were a bad thing…

      I have a pet theory that part of the reason that society (you know, actual real life society) is in such a mess is because certain countries (interestingly, significantly the anglophone ones) gradually developed car-based (non-)societies, where children grew up in isolated bubble like environments, seeing the outside world only through the perspective of a car window.

      It is definitely one of the great joys of living in a city to randomly bump into other friends on public transport (or while cycling or walking), and if you grew up in car-based suburbia or small towns, that's an interesting part of what should have been your societal upbringing that you simply just did not know that you were missing out on.

  10. PhilipN Silver badge

    SWMBO

    I perceive influence from his little lady and the language he has been learning - to read as well as speak, it seems. Kee-rist he may even have been studying Confucius, Mencius and Chairman Mao.

    The mission statement is around just 3 characters in Chinese and in that form comes across as a good deal more pithy.

    The wordy English version just sounds silly.

    But Gmo Zuck will never EVER behave like an Emperor surrounded by eunuchs ..... ... ...

    1. Sir Loin Of Beef

      Re: SWMBO

      Your title is brilliant, just brilliant.

      May Zuck continue to get grief from the office just as much as he (supposedly) does from home.

  11. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "coagulator of like-minded obsessives"

    Seems difficult to avoid that happening when you give the users the ability to choose who they want to associate with, especially since if you don't, the users will just go to a platform that does.

    I think it is clear that people today demand convenience and the illusion of freedom without paying attention to what they are actually paying to get it.

  12. GraphiteGal

    Oh the irony of that!

    So after getting millions hooked on sm (no not THAT sm) he wants people to actually communicate face to face lolz

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Was on Facebook...

    I had serious misgivings, but was more or less dragged on by a couple of girlfriends (deployed serially, not in parallel). Found some old "friends" I hadn't seen, heard, or thought about for years. Realized eventually that most of them were more like acquaintances and I wouldn't have bothered devoting that much time and communication to them in the real world. During the US election cycle, I grew so fatigued by the constant double waterfall of vitriol that I just decided it was all a time suck that did me no good at all, so I munged my profile as much as I could, changed passwords to some random string I cannot recall,then disabled the account.

    I am sure that FB was able to build out a decent profile of me, and therefore that profile is in the hands of various three letter agencies if I ever become "Interesting" so, I stay as uninteresting as possible. Take this post, for example. Incredibly uninteresting.

    1. GrumpyOldBloke
      Joke

      Re: Was on Facebook...

      FB Profile: Evasive, a loner, no stable relationships, no friends, subscribes to violent political discourse. Shouldn't be a problem.

  14. G R Goslin

    Well, as one of those thrown off Facebook.

    I never understood it when it happened, and I've received no info as to why. I only joined after being pestered by my daughter. I hardly used it, and then only for stuff coming in. As far as I'm concerned, it was no loss, and I've taken no steps to get back in. My daughter is still annoyed, though. But at me, not Facebook.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Well, as one of those thrown off Facebook.

      Did you use an unacceptable word like 'Pikey', something even the dumbest automated system can pick-up... BTDT

  15. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    "More surprising is that Zuckerberg thinks his platform can make a difference."

    How is that a surprise?

  16. MT Field

    Observe, peak Favebook.

    Yuh it'll be fine until data sources start leaving in droves or terminally obfuscating themselves, and advert revenue starts to decline Then its game over for Zuck, forced out in a boardroom coup. Following that its back to normal with full-on commercialization, which can only lead to further decline, and so on.

    Thing is, FB does have some merits.

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